The New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Third Judicial Department today upheld a September 2015 wage order by the New York Commissioner of Labor that increases the minimum hourly wages to be paid to fast food workers employed at chains of 30 or more stores to $15 per hour by 2018 in New York City and 2021 in the rest of the state. New York state law grants the Commissioner the authority to establish minimum wages for specific industries and occupations, but the National Restaurant Association challenged the wage order on a number of state and federal law grounds, including that the Commissioner unlawfully imposed the increase only on fast food chains of a certain size. The New York Industrial Board of Appeals rejected that challenge in December 2015, and the Appellate Division affirmed that rejection. In doing so, the Appellate Division noted that the wage board had concluded, “correctly, in [its] view – that fast food chains have recently experienced significant increases in profit without an accompanying rise in wages for their workers, implying that those profits were ‘“wrung from the necessities of their employees”’ by undervaluing their labor.”

Construing California’s “suitable seating” law for the first time since its enactment in 1913, the California Supreme Court ruled in April 2016 that California employers must provide workstation seating to all employees when the “nature of their work reasonably permits the use of seats.” Based on the Supreme Court’s worker-friendly construction, the Ninth Circuit applied California’s seating law to three pending class actions, ruling on June 8, 2016 that a district court had properly certified a statewide class of Walmart checkout cashiers under that standard, but that two other district courts had erroneously denied certification under that same law, one case involving CVS checkout cashiers and the other involving JPMorgan Chase bank tellers under that same law. Altshuler Berzon LLP and its co-counsel represent the workers in all three cases, and partner Michael Rubin argued the cases in both the Ninth Circuit and California Supreme Court.

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May 23, 2016 — After losses in the federal district court, Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and Supreme Court, the International Franchise Association (“IFA”) dismissed its challenge to the Seattle minimum wage ordinance, the first law in the country to adopt hourly wage increases that will reach $15 and spurred many other localities and states […]

The California Court of Appeal today issued its landmark decision in Vergara et al. v. California et al., Case No. B258589, reversing a Los Angeles Superior Court decision invalidating five statutes governing the employment of California public school teachers. The five statutes establish a two-year probationary period for newly-hired teachers; require non-probationary teachers facing dismissal to be provided with basic due process protections; and require school districts to implement economic layoffs in part on the basis of teacher seniority. The Vergara plaintiffs sued the State of California, several state officials, and three school districts, alleging that the five statutes violated the equal protection provisions of the California Constitution by causing students to be assigned to “grossly ineffective teachers” in violation of their fundamental right to educational equality. The California Teachers Association and the California Federation of Teachers, represented by Altshuler Berzon LLP, intervened to help the State defend the statutes’ constitutionality.

After an eight-week trial, the trial court enjoined all future enforcement of all five statutes. The Court of Appeal unanimously reversed and ordered judgment to be entered in favor of the State and the teacher union intervenors, and against the plaintiffs. The Court of Appeal held that plaintiffs’ equal protection theories were fundamentally flawed and that the challenged statutes do not violate equal protection because they do not require different treatment of any identifiable groups of students (no classification); they do not cause any school district to hire, fire, or assign any particular teacher to any particular student (no causation); they are appropriately and constitutionally implemented by school district officials throughout the state (no facial invalidity); and they do not result in disproportionate assignment of less effective students to low-income or minority students (no discrimination). As a result of this decision, California’s 277,000 public school teachers will continue to enjoy the basic job protections guaranteed by the California Legislature, to the benefit of students throughout the state.

Altshuler Berzon LLP represented the California Teachers Association and the California Federation of Teachers in the Superior Court and the Court of Appeal.